Artist: Irdorath
Album: The Final Sin
Genre: Black-Thrash Metal
Country: Austria
Release Date: 1st of May, 2020
Released via Art Gates Records
Cover Artwork © Art Gates Records 2020
Long time no see. I’m back for some reviews. I just asked Roman to give me something to do and he did. So let’s start!
On 1st of May the Austrian band Irdorath released their fifth album The Final Sin with 9 tracks and a runtime of 41 minutes. I’m not sure if its Blackened Thrash Metal they play or Thrashy Black Metal. In my opinion parts of both styles can be found in nearly equal measure, and both parts are important for the identity of Irdorath’s music.
With a look at the cover while starting the first track you get pulled into some divine conflicts already. Typical Black Metal chord progression and some shouted lines seem to be the beginning of a story – blast beats, screams and a nice transition via drum roll into a thrashy verse. Yeah, I liked this one, nice start. “Chains of Virtue” is a good start for the album, showing us already the variety in speed and style in Irdorath‘s music. “Debaptized” is the second track comes along with a fast tremolo-picked high lead melody, and a catchy, stomping break.
The fourth track “Divine Delusion” is my favourite on this album. It starts with a clean guitar intro, followed by some wide and epic sounding distorted chords. It sounds really big, especially the mid-tempo chorus is great. After the second chorus, some dissonant guitars break it up and change the feel, they lead us to the “conflict” part of the song, followed by a clean break, and back to the chorus. Great! These four Austrians know how to work with the dynamics in their songs, fast blasts, thrashy parts, as well as clean or half-tempo parts, they always seem to be right on the point, just right before you could lose your attention for one of the parts, they change it to another.
“Anthem of the Final Sin” starts with hammers, irons and horns, that’s what it sounds to me and again it feels a little epic. Somehow this again creates this divine atmosphere. However, it will get broken up by a fast and chaotic song. Chaotic in a good way. “The Plague, I Am” is too thrashy for me. I like the beginning, and the change to the more blackened part at 0:39, but the transition back to the thrashy part does not work in my ears, it feels somehow wrong, I can’t describe it in a better way. “Shatterer of the worlds” starts with an lo-fi intro, to become a nice mid-tempo stomper most of the time, with some twin-lead blackened explosions. This one works well again. The last track “When The Last Bell Falls Silent” is very similar to the one before, but with a little more speedy parts, and a very rough end.
So, after 41 minutes, “Divine Delusion” still is my favourite track. I like the overall sound of the album, with natural-sounding drums that have some air to breath, twin-leads can be found, as well as some clean guitar parts. ( But no cowbells 😛 )
★★★★★★★☆☆☆
7/10
(Because I think that the second half of the album is a little weaker than the first one, but nonetheless it’s still a good album.)
Favorite Tracks:
Leave a Reply